Page 37 of Her Dying Secret

He slammed the door behind him. Turner left Noah standing by the corkboard while he scooped up his car keys and phone from his desk. “Looks like we’ve all got our assignments. I’ll be at Bobbi Thomas’s house to talk to Mira Summers about our big suspect. Who knows? Maybe once I tell her Lee’s prints are all over the murder weapon, she’ll conveniently remember that he stabbed her.”

Josie thought about offering to do the interview instead or at least to go with him, but then decided against it. The sooner they got the arrest warrant signed for Seth Lee, the better. What if he had the child who drew the picture? What if the child had witnessed the attack? Would Seth let them live? Or was the child in some dank, sunless hole starving to death like April Carlson had? Josie needed to stay put and finish her paperwork.

She didn’t entirely trust Turner to do anything, really, but it made sense for them to split the workload.

Turner winked at her. “You don’t need to come with me, honey. I’m a big boy. I’ve done this before. You stay here with your hubby and your little keyboard.”

Josie glared as she watched him walk out the door. She glanced up at Noah. Annoyance was etched into every line of his face. She nudged him with her elbow. “Are you going to say anything?”

His eyes remained on the door. “My mother always said that if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.”

TWENTY-SEVEN

A couple of hours later, Josie watched the evening news from her desk in the great room. The television that hung on the wall in the corner wasn’t the best quality, nor was it very large, but it would do. The top story was Seth Lee with the chyron reading: Murder Suspect Sought in Case of Missing Teacher. It wasn’t the best caption but both murder and missing persons usually caught people’s attention.

Once the arrest warrant was ready, Josie had uploaded it to NCIC and updated the information in the BOLO they’d put out earlier on Seth Lee. It wasn’t often that Chief Chitwood encouraged using the press, but in this case, since there could be a child at risk, he’d told Josie to get them involved. She had contacted their press liaison, Amber Watts, who’d been working from home as much as possible now that Turner had taken over Mettner’s position and his desk. They hadn’t held a press conference, but together they’d drafted something to send out to the local media.

Now Seth Lee’s driver’s license photo stared back at Josie. She was only half listening as she picked at the dinner Noah had gotten for her at a nearby takeout place before he went home. Josie planned to join him soon. Turner hadn’t responded to any of her texts or calls yet regarding making contact with Mira Summers. She had a sneaking suspicion he’d gone home early, in which case, Josie would wait until Gretchen arrived and then she’d go over to Bobbi Ann Thomas’s house herself to talk to Mira.

Beside Seth’s photo, bullet points began to appear. Diamond-shaped scar upper arm. May be driving a white box truck. May have a young child with him. May be camping outdoors. Possibly armed and dangerous. If you see him, do not approach. Call 911 immediately.

Next, the photo of April at the gazebo flashed onto the screen except that it had been cropped so that only her face and the wrist with her scarab bracelet showed. The chyron now read: Teacher Missing for a Year Found Murdered. Before releasing any details to the press, Josie and Amber had made sure that the death notification for April had been made by the Bucks County coroner. Josie spoke briefly with April’s mother, Teresa, to prepare her for the fact that they were about to release information regarding the suspect in April’s murder to the press. They’d only notified Denton news outlets, but Josie had little doubt the story would get picked up in April’s hometown as well.

Josie’s cell phone buzzed. Fishing it out from under a mound of paperwork on her desk, she saw Douchebag calling. She swiped answer. “Where have you been? Did you make contact with Mira Summers?”

Turner chuckled. “What? No foreplay? Come on, sweetheart. The least you could do is give me a, ‘Hey, Kyle, how’s your day going?’”

Josie rolled her eyes. Why couldn’t he just talk? Like a normal person? Why did everything out of his mouth make her eye twitch? She didn’t have time for his weird banter, but she played along anyway. “Okay. Hey, tiger. How is your day? Do you need a nap? Maybe a juice box?”

“Come on, Quinn. Play nice.”

“Oh, so you do know my name.”

Ignoring that comment, he finally answered her questions. “I had some things to take care of this afternoon, but then I tried to make contact with Summers. Went to Thomas’s house again. She said after Mira went to sleep this morning, she went to work.”

Josie was stuck on what things he could possibly have to take care of other than this case, but Turner just kept talking.

“Bobbi came home about two hours ago and Mira was gone. Mira left her a note saying she was walking to the store to get a temporary cell phone. You know, since we still have her phone? She didn’t say what store but there’s a pharmacy a couple of blocks away that has those shoddy pay-as-you-go phones. I walked over there, poked around. No one remembers seeing her. No sign of her on their surveillance footage.”

Frustration bubbled in Josie’s stomach, her dinner no longer feeling as settled as it had before this call. “Did you pull whatever surveillance was available between Bobbi’s home and the store?”

“I was getting to that. Got a home doorbell camera from across the street that shows her coming out of Bobbi’s house and heading in the opposite direction. There’s a couple of stores in that direction that also have those phones. She went into one and bought a phone but when she came out, she didn’t head back in the direction of Bobbi’s house. She went the other way. I lost her on the cameras, though. There’s a lot of houses over here that don’t have any security cameras.”

“What’s in that direction that a woman with a head injury and stab wounds who was just discharged from the hospital would walk to besides a place to get a new phone?”

There were a few beats of silence and then a muffled conversation before Turner came back on the line. “Mira’s place. Bobbi said maybe she was going to check on the cat.”

Josie had a sinking feeling that Mira hadn’t made it to her house or to wherever she’d been headed. Seth Lee could have lurked somewhere around the hospital, waiting for her to be discharged, and followed her back to Bobbi’s house. He could easily have abducted her somewhere between Bobbi’s house and her own without getting caught on any cameras. But Josie’s hope was that they’d find Mira in her own home.

“Great,” Josie said. “Find out if Bobbi Thomas has a key to Mira’s house. Regardless, I’ll meet you there in ten minutes for a welfare check.”

TWENTY-EIGHT

Streetlights cast a golden glow over the sidewalk in front of Mira Summers’s town house. No lights came from inside the house. Turner stood near Mira’s front stoop, his eyes locked on an attractive brunette about his age. For once his phone wasn’t in his hand, although one of his brown loafers tapped against the pavement. Josie parked behind his car. The cluster of town houses had only street parking, no driveways. They were relatively new, built about five years earlier in an area surrounded by some of the city’s oldest and most historic residences. The city council had tried repeatedly to kill the project since the townhomes, although not ugly, just didn’t fit the aesthetic of all the other homes around them.

“You made it,” Turner said as Josie approached. As if he’d been waiting hours. The police station was less than ten minutes away.

It doesn’t matter, Josie reminded herself. She ignored him and introduced herself to Bobbi. Up close, Josie could see why she’d been able to hold Turner’s attention for more than five seconds. Black yoga pants and a tank top highlighted the toned muscles of her arms and legs. Her brown hair was pulled back and twisted into a bun that only served to accentuate her high cheekbones and sharp jawline. “We tried knocking a few times,” she said. “No answer.”

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